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Lot essay

The present watch is an excellent example of the "bras en l'air" watch, one of the most novel and ingenious ways to show the time. When the button in the band of the case is depressed, the figure raises its arms to point to the time. The mechanism was invented towards the end of the 18th century and enjoyed a revival during the Art Deco period thanks to Ferdinand Verger, the maker of the present watch, who made them for many of the best jewellers of the time. Grogan was a well-known jeweller in Philadelphia who was noted for retailing unusual and rare watches.

Archival photographs of similar watches are published in Audemars Piguet, by Gisbert L. Brunner, Christian Pfeiffer-Belli and Martin K. Wehrli, Le Brassus, 1993, p. 98, and in The World of Vacheron Constantin, Genève, Lambelet/Coen, 1992, p. 389.

Cataloguing & details

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